His name is Mr. Jingles ...

Google+ gets a new notifications mascot, 'mark all read' button

Normally we wouldn't make a big deal about such a small change to Google+, but this one's kind of fun. Stick with us here.

A couple days ago the little notification identifier switched from a number (which Facebook appears to have adopted for unread posts, by the way) to a bell with a rather cute smiley face. We'll call him Mr. Jingles, because that's what Google's calling him. Blaze through all of your notifications and click on Jingles, and he does a fun little dance. Yes, we're easily amused.

Jingles has just hit the Android app for Google+ as well. And along with it comes a new button to mark all of your notifications as read. It looks like a little bar graph, and it's now on the web version of Google+, too. Tap it or click it, and your notifications shall bother you no more. Or, in my case, for the next three seconds. Jingles then appears, applauding your notification-marking ability, and does his little dance.